• Identify and define key internal and external assets and capabilities that underpin the brand and discuss how they contribute to the development of the brand
• Identify and describe strategic issues for a chosen organization that the brand can help address
• Critically discuss the role the brand plays in relation to key business processes using relevant models and concepts
• Identify key management constraints to implementing a consistent branding perspective across the organisation and suggest strategies for ameliorating them
• Identify key stakeholders inside and outside the organization and their contribution to the achievement of strategic brand objectives
• Discuss how to manage relationships with key stakeholders inside and outside the organization to ensure their positive engagement

This course introduces students to the strategic aspects of branding and brand management from a business process perspective. When managed properly, brands can be the driving force of organizational and market transformation by providing a common meaning and purpose across diverse, multiple stakeholders both outside and inside the organization.

This requires brand leadership that operates at the strategic level in the organization, where brand managers have a deep understanding of innovation and change processes on the one hand, and brand leadership skills on the other.

The course will develop students’ understanding of the relationship between innovation and change processes in an organizational context and the role of brand in driving and directing these change processes to develop the business.

The course will firstly identify key foundational concepts relating to: innovation and change processes; defining the brand platform, including corporate brand identity and managing relationships with key strategic stakeholders, including customers.

Secondly it will focus on applying this knowledge in the context of real cases. This part of the course develops students’ skills in identifying and defining strategic issues that the brand can address and develops key analytical, critical and creative skills necessary to drive business development using the brand.

Aim of the course:

The purpose of this course is to understand and critically reflect on the central role of branding in driving business success. In the 21st Century as the very nature of work is being redefined, successful companies are those that have brand purpose at their core. Employees demand meaningful workplaces, customers demand meaningful and purposeful brands with which they can connect and show affinity with, suppliers and distributors look for stable and reliable business partners that reflect their own core values and purpose. Investors look to minimize their risks and maximize their earnings by focusing on firms that are trustworthy and can be long terms partners.

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